FOREIGN AFFAIRS — 100 YEARS AGO TODAY, THE MODERN MAP OF THE MIDDLE EAST WAS DRAWN: “European powers secretly concluded the Sykes-Picot agreement that led to the modern Arab states,” and we’ve been dealing with it ever since. Former Brussels correspondent for the Economist, Anton La Guardia, has had a strong hand in the magazine’s special report on “The Arab World” in its current edition: http://econ.st/27pg5BX

COUNCIL — THE BERLIN-ROME-STOCKHOLM AXIS? The Economist’s Tom Nuttall looks, in his Charlemagne column, at the restless Renzi and his emerging vision for Europe. http://econ.st/1R2M8vG

COMMISSION — GOOGLE SAID TO BE IN LINE FOR A €3 BILLION FINE NEXT MONTH: Google faces a record antitrust fine of around €3 billion, triple the current record, British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph said. POLITICO’s sources are skeptical of the timing and details outlined in the Telegraph story. http://bit.ly/27pJSL1

COMMISSIONERS ON THE ROAD: Federica Mogherini is in Vienna for Libya meetings; Günther Oettinger is in Cannes pushing the 25th anniversary of the EU’s MEDIA funding program; commissioners Moedas and Vella are in Japan for G7 ministerial meetings.

TUSK ON THE ROAD: Council President Donald Tusk is in Denmark and Greenland Tuesday and Wednesday. He’ll be meeting with Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland Premier Kim Kielsen, visiting a glacier and the Ice Cap. On Saturday, Tusk will be in Montenegro to celebrate its 10th independence anniversary.

NATO — QUESTIONS OVER CAPABILITIES OF NEW ‘SPEARHEAD FORCE:’ “The 5,000-man centerpiece of the 2014 NATO summit and the package of measures it produced to counter Russian aggression, would be too vulnerable during its deployment phase to be used in Poland or the Baltic states, two senior NATO generals with close knowledge of the alliance’s logistical and military planning told the Financial Times.” Sam Jones: http://on.ft.com/1sfDPIo

NATO — HOW TO REINVIGORATE AN ‘AILING’ ALLIANCE: Robbie Gramer, the associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, has three tips to supercharge NATO: http://politi.co/1TiOzyE

UN — GEORGIEVA POSITIONING WELL IN UN RACE: Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva, wearing her second hat as head of a U.N. humanitarian financing initiative, accused the U.N. of wasting aid money. Speaking about the U.N.’s humanitarian systems, Georgieva told Iain Dey of The Sunday Times: “We can get an extra $1 billion to those at the front line of humanitarian crises by reducing overheads by 35 percent,” mostly through cutting out work duplication.

Her report on the issue, compiled at the request of current U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, is seen by many as Georgieva’s pitch to take his job. There are currently eight official candidates for the post. A second set of public hearings is set for June 7 in an attempt to flush out more candidate names from U.N. members. http://bit.ly/1VXZ6Tx

MIGRANT CRISIS — RETURNS FALL SHORT: The number of migrants sent back to Turkey from Greece is far below EU expectations, “prompting fears that a fresh wave of arrivals could overwhelm the Aegean Islands during this summer,” writes the FT: http://on.ft.com/1Tg770k

BREXIT — CARNEY WAVES OFF CRITICISM AND CONTINUES TO NOTE POSSIBLE NEGATIVES: Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday, said: “Growth will be materially slower and inflation notably higher in the event of a [vote to] leave.” Carney said those effects could mean fewer jobs, lower wages and bankruptcies. He also said highlighting the negative consequences of a vote to leave “is the difference between denial and transparency.” Carney is not alone. TheIMF and OECD also forecast negative outcomes from a Brexit. http://politi.co/1qmr3q1

BREXIT — EU WILL FAIL AS HITLER, NAPOLEON AND ROME ALL FAILED TOO, PREDICTS JOHNSON: Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Boris Johnson said European history shows that efforts to create unified governments all fail. “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods,” he said. http://politi.co/1TPFmeu

**A message from Google: “We will achieve much more if journalism and technology work together rather than apart,” Google’s Carlo d’Asaro Biondo pledged to news organisations. We’re now collaborating with big names and newcomers alike on the Digital News Initiative; to make new products, invest in training, and fund innovation in digital journalism: https://www.digitalnewsinitiative.com/**

BREXIT — DEBATE SHOWS CAMERON’S WANING INFLUENCE: A ComRes poll has found that twice as many people think Boris Johnson is likely to tell the truth about the EU than Cameron. The same poll found voters consider Mark Carney’s opinion the most important in the debate. http://reut.rs/23Sl3mc

BREXIT — ON THE IRISH BORDER: The Brexit debate is stirring dark memories in two towns on the Irish border, writes Jennifer Duggan. South Armagh and Newry “clawed their way back from violence and poverty — and fear the outcome of the U.K. referendum.” http://politi.co/1qmzr98

BREXIT — MEPS GO WHERE JUNCKER FEARS TO TREAD: By mutual agreement between the man himself and the U.K. government, you won’t be seeing Jean-Claude Juncker, or probably any EU leader, out on the stump campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU. That isn’t stopping MEPs from countries with millions of EU-enthusiastic Anglophiles filling the gap. Fredrick Federley, the liberal MEP, tells Playbook he has sent a team of 20 supporters to England to campaign between now and the referendum. Do you know other MEPs doing the same? Send your tip to rheath@politico.eu

BREXIT — WOULD IT MAKE GERMANY MORE DOMINANT, OR THE EU LESS RELEVANT? Charles Grant has an opinion piece in the FT on how a Brexit would worsen the EU’s “German problem” by making Germany more dominant: http://on.ft.com/27pMMPH

PROFILE — THE GERMAN DOCTOR WHO TREATS ISIL’S SEX SLAVES: German psychologist Jan Ilhan Kizilhan treats Yazidi women who have been taken hostage and abused in Syria and Iraq. http://politi.co/1qmzilZ

UK — INDENTURED LABOUR IN THE PROVINCES: Felicity Lawrence, who made her journalistic reputation investigating questionable practices in our food supply chains, writes in The Guardian: “In the bleak flatlands of East Anglia, migrant workers are controlled by criminal gangs, and some are forced to commit crimes to pay off their debts. This is what happens when cheap labour is our only priority.” http://bit.ly/1TfXSzr

FRANCE — HOLLANDE ON HOLLANDE, A RETROSPECTIVE: A video from the Élysée selling four years of the president. Watch it here: http://bit.ly/1V4LzZk

SPAIN — THE FIGHT FOR WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION INCHES FORWARD: Spain’s whistleblowers often find themselves hung out to dry. The consequences can be financial ruin and social isolation, and those issues are now rising up the political agenda as Spaniards declare themselves sick of their governing class.http://nyti.ms/23SlxJ1

POLAND — STUCK IN CREDIT RATING LIMBO: Moody’s puts Poland on negative watch over the country’s political crisis, but Warsaw dodged a downgrade for now. Standard & Poor’s downgraded the country in January. http://politi.co/1Yt8V9R

NETHERLANDS — RUTTE MAKES THE NY TIMES, THANKS TO HIS BOOK TASTE: The Dutch PM is a big fan of Robert Caro, the biographer of Lyndon Johnson, it seems. http://nyti.ms/1WzbzxH

TURKEY — THE ARMY RISES: Turkey’s military, which has forced four civilian governments from power since 1960, is re-emerging as a pivotal actor alongside Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the country’s president who has long viewed it as a potentially dangerous adversary, writes the Wall Street Journal. http://on.wsj.com/1R2X4Jz

GERMANY — TURKEY TROUBLE: German politicians have accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of making Europe beholden to Turkey in the migrant crisis, leaving the bloc vulnerable to blackmail by the country’s president: http://reut.rs/1ZVhL0v. Meanwhile, Germany’s parliament will vote on a motion June 2 condemning the Armenian massacres by Ottoman Turks during the first world war as genocide. Erdoğan won’t be amused. http://on.ft.com/1TiQ7ZB

OPINION — EUROSKEPTICS FOOLING THEMSELVES ABOUT TRADE BENEFITS: “Europe’s pre-EU experience lends little support to the idea that free trade can flourish in the world of sovereign nation-states, unencumbered by mechanisms of international governance like the EU or the WTO. Neither unilateral liberalization, a darling idea of many libertarians, nor bilateral agreements have enough teeth to dissuade opportunistic politicians from reintroducing protectionist measures when it becomes politically convenient.” Dalibor Rohac: http://politi.co/1soNVXU

MEDIA — HOW THE NEW YORK TIMES PLANS TO CONQUER THE WORLD: Only 13 percent of the NYT’s million-plusdigital subscribers are from outside the U.S. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t aspire to a digital subscriber count of many millions,” CEO Mark Thompson (a Brit and former BBC head) tells POLITICO’s Joe Pompeo and Alex Spence. The NYT’s future depends on it, but competition is stiff — and not everyone is hot on the paper’s prospects. http://politi.co/22cwfe3

US 2016 — A TRUMP REFERENDUM: POLITICO’s Washington D.C. Playbook writes: “The presidential race isn’t a clear referendum on the outgoing president/incumbent … This is a referendum on Donald Trump, the reality show candidate, the infotainment ringmaster, the Twitter-meister. As Marshall McLuhan put it long ago, the medium is the message.” The week’s most promising installment of the Trump rollercaster ride is set to be his interview with FOX’s Megyn Kelly, airing Tuesday night in the U.S. http://nyti.ms/1Wy3HfL

US 2016 — THE VICE PRESIDENCY NO ONE SHOULD WANT: Stuck dealing with the ego of Trump or a first man ex-president with time on his hands … it’s going to be interesting for whoever gets the VP candidate slots. Jeff Greenfield for POLITICO Magazine: http://politi.co/1V43i34

US 2016 — TRUMP’S TROUBLES WITH WOMEN AND IMPERSONATIONS: Two must-reads over the weekend from the new interest in Trump’s track record.

Women: Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey in the New York Times write up a dozen of interviews with women who say that Trump can be kind and helpful. But his behavior also reveals patterns of “unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, the shrewd reliance on ambitious women and, in some cases, uncomfortable physical aggression.” http://nyti.ms/1Ww4YUE

Trump’s publicist alter ego: “Donald Trump masqueraded as publicist to brag about himself,” by Marc Fisher and Will Hobson.Trump posed as his own spokesperson, “John Barron” or “John Miller,” according to the Washington Post, which posted audio tapes and court records to back its claims: http://wapo.st/1smoYwd

EUROVISION WRAP …

The world’s most watched one-off event (move over Superbowl, move over Oscars!) is over for another year. This year’s edition from Stockholm dived straight into the politics of Europe’s shift to darker times and sought to overcome it with a message of “openness and tolerance,” said Ingrid Deltenre, the European Broadcasting Union’s director general. http://apne.ws/1sq1Dd3

What a controversial thriller it was. Favorites and popular vote winners Russia slugged it out with politics-heavy Ukraine, and jury-winning, non-European Australia. Ukraine was the winner, with Russia now calling for a boycott. http://politi.co/1rNL4ap

WE HEAR … from EBU insiders that a Eurovision Asia is in the works, and that the first edition is set to be hosted by interlopers Australia.

SPOTTED: European political figures at the event included European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström; power couple former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and the MEP Anna-Maria Corazza Bildt; MEPs Fredrick Federley and Christofer Fjellner. The Swedish Democrats (the right-wing party leading in some Swedish polls) were represented by their leader Jimmie Åkesson, no less.

BELGIUM TIPS, PART ONE … Brussels Airlines has devoted an edition of their inflight magazine to “The Best of Belgium” to inspire a bounce in interest after the blows of the November Paris and March Brussels attacks. It’s a goldmine of great tips. Here are the highlights:

EUROPE’S FIRST GASTRONOMY FESTIVAL COMES TO NAMUR: From June 4-7, organized by a group of local chefs calling themselves Generation W, two dozen Michelin-starred chefs will shows off their talents. http://www.generationw.be

Diane von Furstenberg recommends … The most famous of Belgium’s many fashion designers, DVF recommends old favorites Wittamer (on the Sablon) for pastries, and Le Canterbury (Ixelles ponds) for crevettes and herring. She says she’s a devotee of Foret de Soignes for walks. In Antwerp she puts the Red Star Line Museum (“a place of hope”) and the fashion museum MOMU Modenatie at the top of her bill.

NORTHERN EUROPE COFFEE TIP: Joe and the Juice, the Danish coffee chain, is the best chain Playbook has come across. Despite rapid growth (it’s now in more than a dozen countries) I found last week that it was still holding its standards. Their store locator is here: http://bit.ly/1Wysgcm

BRUSSELS ART TIP: It’s the last week of a the exhibition RIOT — Statement on Our Times by Greek artist Dimitrios Oikonomouby. Getting good reviews in local press, the theme is “Mythology and history are transposed to today’s society with incidents, riots, refugees and political discourse,” explains Johanna Suo, the gallery’s director, on the exhibition’s Facebook page. http://bit.ly/23SrLIQ

BIRTHWEEK: European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström saw in her birthday at Eurovision in Stockholm, running into the early hours of Sunday. Marriott’s Robert Nagys, who after years of looking after VIPs in the chain’s Brussels hotels, heads to a new post in New York City next month. Official celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday run through the week.

MARRIED: Downing Street spokesperson Helen Bower.

ANNIVERSARY: Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel celebrated one year of marriage to his husband yesterday. He took to Twitter share the spirit http://bit.ly/1WAqTJH.

**A message from Google: It’s just over a year since Google’s President of Strategic Partnerships for Europe, Carlo D’Asaro Biondo, outlined our hope to work together with the news industry, at the FT media conference in London. We started with eight partners, including Les Echos, La Stampa and El Pais. Now, there’s over 160, spanning different languages and media formats.The three pillars of this partnership involve working together to create products which introduce readers to great stories in different and interesting ways, funding ambitious new projects and Google News Lab, which trains everyone from rookie reporters to experienced editors in getting the most out of digital. We admire quality journalism, but we want to leave it to the professionals — we have no plans to get involved in creating or commissioning news. Learn more: https://goo.gl/GOf9yC**